"A Love Worth Giving" by Max Lucado

I'm not quite finished but I'll be finished by tomorrow as I have to return it to the library and want to check out a different book.

This is my first Max Lucado book. And it was GREAT! I thoroughly enjoyed the simplicity, the word-pictures, the examples (especially admission of his own failure!), and the profound truths of God that were woven through it all. It was great. Lucado goes through the different facets of love that Paul lays out in the oh-so-familiar passage from 1st Corinthians 13. Each chapter defines and gives examples of what each facet means. Like I said - GREAT.

Here's a very short excerpt: (From the chapter regarding "Love ...always protects.)

"The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them" (Gen. 3:21).

The mystery behind those words! Read them again, and try to envision the moment.

"The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them."

That simple sentence suggests three powerful scenes.

Scene 1: God slays an animal. For the first time in the history of the earth, dirt is stained with blood. Innocent blood. The beast committed no sin. The creature did not deserve to die.

Adam and Eve did. The couple deserve to die, but they live. The animal deserves to live, but it dies. In scene 1, innocent blood is shed.

Scene 2: Clothing is made. The shaper of the stars now becomes a tailor.

And in Scene 3: God dresses them. "The Lord... dressed them."

Oh, for a glimpse of that moment. Adam and Eve are on their way out of the garden. They've been told to leave, but now God tells them to stop. "Those fig leaves," he says, shaking his head, "will never do." And he produces some clothing. Btu he doesn't throw the garments at their feet and tell them to get dressed. He dresses them himself. "Hold still, Adam. Let's see how this fits." As a mother would dress a toddler. As a father would zip up the jacket of a preschooler. God covers them. He protects them.

Love always protects.

Hasn't he done the same for us? We eat our share of forbidden fruit. We say what we shouldn't say. Go where we shouldn't go. Pluck fruit from trees we shouldn't touch.

And when we do, the door opens, and the shame tumbles in. And we hide. We sew fig leaves. Flimsy excuses. See-through justifications. We cover ourselves in good works and good deeds, but one gust of the wind of truth, and we are naked again - stark naked in our own failure.

So what does God do? Exactly what he did for our parents in the garden. He shed innocent blood. He offers the life of his Son. And from the scene of the sacrifice the Father takes a robe - not the skin of an animal - but the robe of righteousness. And does he throw it in our direction and tell us to shape up? No, he dresses us himself. He dresses us with himself. "You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ" (Gal. 3:26-27).

The robing is his work, not ours. Did you note the inactivity of Adam and Eve? They did nothing. Absolutely nothing. They didn't request the sacrifice; they didn't think of the sacrifice; they didn't even dress themselves. They were passive in the process. So are we. "You have been saved by grace through believing. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God. It was not the results of your own efforts, so you cannot brag about it. God has made us what we are" (Eph. 2:8-10).

We hide. He seeks. We bring sin. He brings a sacrifice. We try fig leaves. He brings the robe of righteousness. And we are left to sing the song of the prophet: "He has covered me with clothes of salvation and wrapped me with a coat of goodness, like a bridegroom dressed for his wedding, like a bride dressed in jewels" (Isa. 61:10).